Well, West Point has decided to keep its mascot, the venerable Army Mule, despite the claim that it offends jackasses.

This yay/nay Washington Redskins debate has predictably been redirected, drowned and otherwise dimmed by visceral cries of political contamination. Only moist-eyed liberals and the politically corrected — those still high on tie-dye ingredients — would mess with “Redskins.”

That it could not be a political issue, at all — that it instead could be a right-from-wrong issue on which those from the right, left and middle could agree — is out of the question and debate.

I’m a member of a political party that doesn’t exist — the Militant Moderates. A Militant Moderate would shoot a home intruder in the leg, rather than the head. But Militant Moderates aren’t likely to own a gun, not a loaded one anyway. If you’re in the area, we meet every other Tuesday, at the MM Hall, just off the Interstate.

As per a reasonable, logical and non-political position on “Redskins,” the maintenance of the nickname makes no good, American sense:

1) If today the NFL or any big league were born, none of its teams would be the Redskins, not any more than one would be the Pale Skins.

Why? Because people of almost all sensibilities and political affiliations would know that Redskins is wrong, that it smacks of antiquated bigotry, that it is offensive and does offend.

So beyond obdurate team ownership and fans, why sustain it? As a matter of tradition? A tradition of what? Stubbornness? ’Skins’ fans otherwise would abandon the team? Their ticket base would wilt faster than the Jets’ the day Woody Johnson mandated PSLs?

Fans would’ve rooted less hard for the Washington team had it been born the “Beans,” the “Bugs” or the “Joe Blows”? Why sustain a name that hurts? What’s it worth?

2) No right-headed adult of any political bent would address a Native American to his or her face as “redskin.”

Why? Because they know it would be offensive, it would be wrong, it would needlessly and senselessly hurt his or her feelings.

If you can’t see why Native Americans are offended by “Redskins” you’re not trying hard enough. And that goes double for you, Roger Goodell.

Rationalizations: There are dozens of them. Among the most common: “Then why not change Notre Dame’s nickname. Isn’t ‘Fighting Irish’ ethnically offensive?”

Well, it is — but only if you’re offended. Notre Dame has designed its dukes-up leprechaun as a fun, cartoonish mascot. It lacks the racial bluntness and harshness of “Redskins.”

Still, if enough people are offended by Fighting Irish, heck, I’d back them. For crying out loud, I’m not out to hurt your feelings, not over the nickname of a ball team!

Solution: Rename the club the Washington Potomacs, a salute to the tribe whose ancestors still inhabit the Maryland/Virginia region. Hey, just trying to help — and not hurt.

More sympathy for Peterson than murdered child

NFL star Adrian Peterson could have up to seven children out of wedlock.Photo: Getty Images

Saturday, as the Tigers were no-hitting the Red Sox into the ninth, FOX’s Joe Buck said the Yankees’ Bill Bevens was no-hitting the Dodgers with two out in the ninth in the 1947 World Series when Brooklyn’s Cookie Lavagetto doubled in two to win Game 4. (These days, just another “walk-off double.”) Buck added that both runners had walked.

Dodgers’ radio man Red Barber famously applied this call to that ending:

“Here comes the tying run, and here comes the winning run! … Friends, they’re just killing Lavagetto! His own teammates. They’re beating him to pieces! And it’s taking a police escort to get Lavagetto away from the Dodgers! … Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule!”

‘Scams’ catch up to WR

When Irving Fryar was a star WR at Nebraska then with several NFL teams, he was among the “Most Likely To Be Arrested.” Guns, domestic assault, drugs — he’d catch as many charges as passes.

But last year, as delightedly reported by local and national media, Fryar graduated from the North Carolina College of Theology, and began devoting his life to good; doing the Lord’s work. Great, feel-good story.

But how did the media know this was true? Fryar said so, that’s how.

Wednesday, Fryar, 51, and his mother, were indicted in New Jersey for conspiracy to defraud $700,000 from banks in mortgage scams.

As the late radio great Jean Shepherd would say, “In God we trust. All others pay cash.”

* * *

Would love to see Gary Bettman watch the new commercial for EA’s NHL ’14 video game — it’s loaded with the excessive violence for which the NHL fines and suspends — then declare he approves of what the NHL, in this ad, is selling.

Perhaps no serial boxing matches included more brutality, courage and mutual respect than the three Arturo Gatti-Mickey Ward bouts of 2002-03 — 30 rounds in 13 months. Tomorrow, HBO presents the 75-minute “Legendary Nights: The Tale of Gatti-Ward,” debuting at about midnight, after live boxing. Multiple re-airings begin Monday at 9:15 a.m.